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Bank of Scotland cashes in on affinity card holders

THE Bank of Scotland has sold more than 100,000 affinity credit-card holders to the American credit-card giant MBNA. The move, which has not been formally announced, affects cards held by tens of thousands of Scots, including those issued by Rangers, Hearts and the University of Edinburgh.

The bank, citing commercial confidentiality, refused to give a price for the deal, and denied it was abandoning its customers. “People take affinity cards because of the partner benefiting, not because of the operating bank,” a spokesman said.

The switch was not linked to the bank’s corporate relationship with the football clubs. “We remain the corporate bankers for Rangers and Hearts — the two things are not connected.”

Delaware-based MBNA is the world’s largest independent credit-card specialist. A company spokesman said he could not give a full list of cards transferred as “some of them aren’t in the public domain yet.”